Category: Edgar Degas

Daylight is too easy. What I want is difficult: the atmosphere of lamps or moonlight.”~ Edgar Degas (source)

A Measure of Light

A measure of light. Most of my work as an artist deals with light qualities and properties of light. Its influence on the subject matter or work depends on the media used, whether an illuminated screen, projected, or printed on a substrate. The quality of light, the white balance whether sunlight, tungsten, or flame figures in the piece. The effects that it produces such as the colors, values, and tones affect the eventual meaning of the work. All of lights properties are considered even those that are outside of the spectrum that the human eye can observe. I can measure it and use it to obscure, illuminate, cast in shadow. I use it as metaphor or fact.

Currently I am studying how light is referred to and is use in the talking about the spiritual realm. I hope that study and its conclusions will eventually present itself in my work as well.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” ~ Edgar Degas (source)

Garnet, Montana—Moment of the Past

Art and design… Both have design principles at play. Both allow others to see the world differently. Both focus on a potential target audience. Both communicate. Both are dependent on culture. Both have an aesthetic but each have different purposes.

Fine art is a mode of self-expression. Some would say self-flagellation. Every artist is a poet of sorts…

Design has a different function, here the artist/designer is consumed with purpose of communication and is focused to some extent on the principles of marketing. Most notably on the 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion as they relate to the target audience that exists within an environment. The environment is defined by culture, place, time, and the communities mores and beliefs.